Norman Bates wrote:I guess a lot of this comes down to the agreement that took place initally when KXP went there. Were legal documents and leases signed?
I have been away all weekend and have only just been catching up on this thread. As someone involved with King Cross from the very outset, I obviously feel extremely disappointed at the current scenario. I would like to take this opportunity to inform all on the background as to the initial involvement at Old Crossleyans.
From the very first night on Savile Park with 8 lads back in 1986, without any Anderson or Eadie attendance as popular opinion appears to have been handed down, King Cross were nomadic until the move to Broomfield. The Halifax players connection only came along after a couple of months and the first year was spent playing a few friendlies here and there - mainly there, wherever it was! After a spell using the pitches at Savile Park and a few months training at Vandals (definitely not wanted there, I can assure you), we finally settled down at the field below the old Halifax Royal Infirmary where training took place on Tuesday evenings using car headlights to light up enough of the pitch to train on.
By the early 1990's, we had built the club up so that we were the
only club in Halifax running teams at every age group from Under 8 through to Under 12 but were again about to be without a home as plans were afoot to sell the field at the hospital for housing development. An opportunity arose to use the facilities at Old Crossleyans and the offer of accommodation was gratefully accepted. The agreement was that we could train on Wednesday nights and play on Sunday mornings.
There were no legal documents drawn up and there were many verbal running battles with some of the "old heads" at Crocs, some down to sheer stubbornness on their part but in fairness, they were also not used to more than 100 kids using their club. The contributory advantage for Crocs was that they were making monies over the bar by King Cross utilising their facilities. As regards to King Cross, we had "a roof over our heads" and were able to socialise properly after training and games.
Over the first few years it was due to being able to use some of the finest facilities in Yorkshire that the club went from strength to strength, showing many other local clubs the way forward by entering teams in the exceptionally tough Yorkshire League, prior to its combining with the West Riding League.
The problem was always going to be that Old Crocs were absolutely concrete in the view that King Cross could only grow to Under 16 level and at that point, the players were to be given the opportunity to move to Youth or Open Age at another local club or possibly try their hand at Rugby Union. Some players did take the latter option but it should be pointed out that, whilst Old Crocs managed to recruit some good RL players, King Cross also gained many players due to the fact that they were off-springs of the RU club players.
It was fairly evident that, in the long term, there was a clear need to develop open age teams and Park Amateurs provided the chance to move in this direction, but once the link with Park Amateurs was established, the old "us and them" view became more firmly established again. In reality, the growth and expansion of King Cross/King Cross Park probably contributed to this as it had become way bigger than ever envisaged. Clearly, the political history between the two codes is more firmly entrenched than memories of the 1939-45 conflict and there was going to be a divorce at the slightest sniff of an excuse.
The "grant" thing is probably the first time such an excuse has arisen and it is particularly upsetting to see what has happened to such a magnificent local club. I sincerely hope that everybody concerned pushes forward.
Would like to wish all at King Cross all the best, it certainly doesn't seem 25 years ago when it all started.
